


talking to strangers

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A response to the prompt "One finds the other's phone number in a library book AU" - mostly.</p>
<p>Jason Grace gets a text from a number he doesn't know, and (like anybody else would) he decides it's perfectly logical to text back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	talking to strangers

It started when Jason’s phone started singing in the middle of physics.

He ducked under the desk to check it - to find out which of his friends, exactly, he should yell at later for forgetting when Jason’s “DO NOT CONTACT” times were (probably Percy, he imagined) - and found that he’d received a text from an unknown number.

_Why is a raven like a writing desk?_

Jason flicked his sound phone’s sound off and texted back.

**I don’t know, but I think you’ve got a wrong number.**

A response came almost immediately.

_Did not. You left a scrap of paper with your phone number on it in the library’s copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My friend dared me to call it and see if anybody answered._

**I don’t remember doing that.**

_Why would I make that up?_

Jason didn’t have a good answer for that, so instead of answering he tucked his phone away and returned to paying attention to the lesson.

He’d all but forgotten about it until a few days later, when he tried to text Leo.

**I’m running late, but I’m coming, I promise! Jackson roped me into helping wrangle the escaped ducklings, and it’s taking forever.**

_Now you DEFINITELY have the wrong number._

**Oh, yeah, sorry! I must’ve hit the wrong conversation without noticing.**

_Happens all the time. I don’t envy you for the ducklings, by the way. I was there when they escaped. Don’t forget, there are EIGHT._

**You were?! Why aren’t YOU doing this, then?**

_I had fencing club, and Reyna doesn’t like it when I miss. Something about ‘you need to actually interact with people’ and ‘honestly, Nico, your form is terrible’_

**You know Reyna?**

_Obviously. You know Percy._

_You know my name, now. I think that means that I’m entitled to know yours._

**I’m Jason.**

_Hi, Jason._

**Hi, Nico.**

_And Bye, Jason. Reyna’s yelling at me for being on my phone at practice._

**I’m surprised you risked her wrath at all. You’re clearly a braver man than I.**

The next time Jason saw Reyna, he couldn’t help but ask.

"You know a guy named Nico, don’t you?" 

Reyna gave him a funny look. “He was asking about you, too. How did you two meet?”

"We haven’t," Jason admitted. "He found my phone number in a library book. Said his friend dared him to call it." Reyna’s funny look turned into a half-smile, like she knew something he didn’t. "It wasn’t  _you_ , was it?”

"Oh no," replied Reyna. "But I know who did."

Which was why Jason found himself knocking on Annabeth Chase’s apartment door.

When the door opened, he was surprised to see not Annabeth, but a short, dark haired guy standing in the doorway.

"You’re not Percy," the guy said, at exactly the same moment as Jason observed, "You’re not Annabeth."

The guy laughed. “I’d hope not. I’m Nico.”

"You!"

"Me?"

"I’m Jason!"

"You!"

Annabeth’s laughter in the next room brought them back to earth.

They learned later that they had rather a lot of friends in common. Actually, it turned out that their ever interacting at all had come down to Annabeth and Jason’s ex-girlfriend (and Nico’s classmate) Piper meddling.

“Piper planted the phone number, and I set Nico up to find it,” Annabeth explained.

“I told you I didn’t put it there,” Jason said, poking Nico’s chest.

Annabeth looked from one of them to the other, then burst out in laughter again.

(Nico and Jason became Proper Friends after that. And if maybe they dated in the future, well, it can hardly be denied that there’s a possibility that that was Piper’s intent in the first place.)


End file.
